Left: Merjem Mededovic in her hometown of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Right: Kljukusa on a plate.

Merjem Mededovic/Collage by NPR

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Merjem Mededovic/Collage by NPR

Left: Merjem Mededovic in her hometown of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Right: Kljukusa on a plate.

Merjem Mededovic/Collage by NPR

All Things We’re Cooking is a sequence that includes family recipes from you, our readers and listeners, and the particular tales behind them. We’ll proceed to share extra of your kitchen gems all through the vacations.

As a younger little one, Merjem Mededovic spent her first years in Germany earlier than she and her household settled within the United States, having fled war-torn Sarajevo. When they returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2003, Mededovic wasn’t fluent within the language. Her grandmother helped bridge that hole.

“With both of my parents working, my grandmother took care of both me and my sister during the day,” Mededovic mentioned. “She would pick us up from school. She would make lunch and make sure we do our homework. And oftentimes she would prepare dinner as well.”

Mededovic typically would be a part of her grandmother within the kitchen as she made dinner and realized the names of various issues in Bosnian.

“She was very, very, very patient with teaching me how to make all the foods and how each ingredient is called. We would go to the marketplaces together and she would even show me how to haggle,” Mededovic mentioned. “So it was a very natural way for me to kind of absorb all of the culture and all of the language.”

One of the dishes that Mededovic watched her grandmother make is kljukusa — a potato and onion dish that she describes as a cross between a “latke and a baked pancake.”

Her grandmother was having problem describing the dish till she referred to it because the “cousin” to pita, a kind of cheese pie that the household eats. It is just like spanakopita.

“Due to our language barriers, my grandma didn’t know how to explain it so she told me ‘You know pita? Well, this is pita’s cousin.’ Ever since that day, we now call kljukusa ‘cousin,'” Mededovic mentioned. “This led to fun conversations … ‘I’m having cousin for dinner tonight,’ or ‘I’ve really been craving cousin.'”

The distinctive identify has led to plenty of laughs, too, Mededovic mentioned, particularly when she talks in regards to the dish and has to keep in mind that it is truly known as kljukusa by everybody else, not cousin.

The potato pancake is usually topped with a garlic yogurt sauce, and Mededovic mentioned her household likes to eat it with quartered uncooked onions and slices of tomatoes, with salt on the facet.

Today, Mededovic resides in Ann Arbor, Mich., the place she’s engaged on finishing her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering. She mentioned she typically calls house to Bosnia and talks together with her grandmother about recipes and extra.

“We chitchat very frequently. She’s been a very large supporter,” Mededovic mentioned. “So whenever I have issues and difficulties with school … I call her up and she reminds me to be patient, to be steadfast, to not give up.”

Kljukusa

Recipe submitted by Merjem Mededovic
Ann Arbor, Mich.

Ingredients

• 1 pound of potatoes, grated (about 2 massive potatoes)
• 1 onion, grated
• 1/4 cup oil
• 3/4 cup and a splash of milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of pepper
• Optional: 1 tablespoon of Vegeta, which is a spice combine like Herbamare

For the yogurt sauce

• 1 cup of liquid yogurt (just like kefir, however can water down Greek yogurt)
• 1 cup bitter cream
• 3 garlic cloves, grated

Directions

Heat oven to 450 levels Fahrenheit. Prepare a baking dish (massive baking pan with not less than 2-inch excessive sides) by oiling it liberally.

Grate potatoes and onion in a big bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the oil, milk and eggs collectively. Add the liquid combination to the potatoes and blend.

Slowly add flour, salt and pepper to make a batter. It ought to have a chunky, thick cake batter consistency. If too skinny, add flour; if too thick, add milk.

Pour batter into the baking dish and bake for 25-Half-hour till golden brown.

Mix substances for the yogurt sauce, and pour them over the new kljukusa. Let relaxation for not less than 10-Quarter-hour.

Enjoy. We typically eat this with a facet salad of onion, cucumber and tomato, or with simply uncooked onion or spring onion with some salt.